Posted on 07/26/2010 5:04:42 AM PDT by jerry557
ATLANTA — Georgia was lauded four years ago by conservatives for passing one of the nation's toughest sex offender laws. But the state has had to significantly — and without fanfare — scale back its once-intense restrictions.
Georgia's old law was challenged by civil liberties groups even before it took effect. After losing court battle after court battle, state legislators were forced to make a change or a federal judge was going to throw out the entire law. Now that the restrictions have been eased, about 13,000 registered sex offenders — more than 70% of all Georgia sex offenders — can live and work wherever they want.
Previously, all registered sex offenders were banned from living within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, churches and other places where children gather, essentially driving them either to desolate areas or out of state. At one point, a tent city of homeless sex offenders was discovered in the woods behind a suburban office park.
"Lessening those kinds of restrictions is dangerous — it could lead to more crime, more offenders," said Ernie Allen of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "We know that sex offenders who prey upon children do well in prison because there aren't temptations there. These guys get into the community, they begin to fantasize as they encounter kids in the community, and they lead to new offenses."
Across the country, states are trying to figure out how far they can legally go to keep convicted sex offenders away from children. High-profile cases of registered sex offenders being accused of re-committing crimes only increases the legislative pressure.
Georgia's strict law ran into trouble because it cast too wide a net, targeting sex offenders that committed their crimes years before the tough law was passed in 2006.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstamendmentcenter.org ...
Many federal judges need to be thrown out!
The answer to this is easy.
1st offense of child molesting - 25 years with no parole.
Set up prisons with military barracks style living arrangements. much cheaper than these semi-private rooms the criminals get now.
2nd offense - death
Problem goes away.
Let them all move in with the Federal judges.That way their “civil rights” will surely not be violated.
They have evidently eased up on guys in for public urination and mooning old ladies.
As tempting as that is you really shouldn't do that.Why? One reason (and *only* one reason)..because if you can get the chair for abusing someone then you have no incentive to let that individual live after you've abused him/her.
I disagree - the story you cite is a case of identity theft. It is very troublesome and complicated and messy (I know - it happened to my 87 year old parents).... but it is not an excuse to allow sex offenders to live "wherever" in Georgia. BTW - are you from Ga.?
Yeppers. That’s the reason rape and a number of other dreadful crimes don’t carry the death penalty. It reduces the incentive to eliminate witnesses.
Fox News had an interview with the stepfather of the little girl that was abducted and killed in GA. I don’t recall the guy’s name; but, his point was the sex offenders being released who were serving lesser sentences were not any less predatory but just had copped a plea to a lesser charge.
There is no faulting the DAs; they figured that the perp would be serving the full term of the plea.
I agree. If we had confidence in our criminal justice system, the guilty would be sentenced accordingly. The problem is everyone got emotional after Carlie Bruccia and Jessica Lundsford(and rightfully so). But what happened was a 17th century witch hunt for people who have varying situations. You can push people away(NIMBY), but what does that solve. I saw the relaxing of sex offender laws coming. Its not “sustainable”.
And yes, I used to be one of the Florida probation officers that was forced to visit people under bridges and in the woods. Its not cost effective.
The real question here is what is the definition of a “sex offender”? It doesn’t appear to be just child molesters. There should be a standard that reflects the broad range of what can be considered a sex offense. And, of course, the answer is to have judges who can apply a remedy that fits the crime, which is a challenge.
A guy who was seen taking a leak in the woods at a golf course ended up on the sex offenders list.
A teen who got caught in the back seat of his car with his girl friend ended up on the sex offenders list.
Is that really justice?
But read my post again. "Child molesting". Most sexual convictions are useless. They prosecute the stupid but leave the evil free to run. We need to get back to punishing the evil.
I assumed that in your post child molesters = sex offenders since that was the thread topic.
But with the laws as they are it is still hard to tell if a convition was from direct sex with a child or if it was simiply an underage consenting girlfriend who’s daddy got upset with the boyfriend.
Georgia had a highschool teenage boy serve time cuz his slightly younger girlfriend gave him a hummer.
Executing rapists of any kind is banned by the Supreme Court.
So forget that idea.
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